@Barana

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really? is that with telstra or someone else?

Three has 6GB of 3G data with a USB modem for $39, or 3GB of 3G phone data for $40 (and the same kind of discrepancy for smaller volumes).

Vodafone charges $11.95 for 100MB of phone data, or $19.95 for 1GB of USB modem data.

Optus will deliver 5GB of USB modem data for $39.95, but for the phone their "SuperPack" at $14.95 includes all of 200MB.

Getting 1G of phone data from Telstra will cost $89 (and $119 for 3G --- go figure!) Their USB modem data plans are almost as uncompetitive, though, starting at 1GB for $49, but at slower speeds...

@CodeSmith

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Apple killed the Mac clone market in the 1990s, sending many of its rivals into an early grave

Oh, the cheek of it, doing something that is bad for their rivals...

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and punishing MacOS users for "backing the wrong team"

How so? It's not like the owners of machines from the "rivals" suddenly found themselves without working computers.

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2. Apple has consistently been thwarting their customers' attempts at installing 3rd party applications on iPhones

If they really were trying seriously, they have done a lousy job. Jailbreaking (rather than unlocking) the things has been readily available for all members of the family almost since the first iPhone was sold. My iPod Touch certainly has all sorts of goodies installed...

Anyway, they have been extremely open and clear on that point since the very start. Nobody forced people to buy iPhones if they disagreed with such restrictions.

There are all sorts of arguments to be made both for and against opening a consumer device up to haphazard third party development, and Apple's approach has always been one of central control ensuring a consistent and reliable user experience. Some people value that higher than openness, some don't. If you are in the latter category, I have an OpenMoko NEO1973 I could sell you for a very reasonable price --- as open as it gets, and, it turns out, completely useless for me.

Oh, and lastly, of course, Apple is trying to "thwart" third party apps by providing an incredibly convenient distribution path for them; Providing it without compensation, too, for free-as-in-beer apps.

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Apple's current lawsuit against PsyStar is seeking a recall of all Mac clones, which if successful, will bankrupt the company for violating the EULA

Again, what cheek --- using the tools at their disposal to give themselves a leg-up on their rivals.

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and strand all their customers, who own legal copies of MacOS X - see point 1.

I fail to see how people who bought a PsyStar computer from PsyStar are Apple's customers. Yes, these people paid PsyStar for copies of OS X, yet they have not bought any hardware OS X is designed to run on, and they knew this when they bought those copies of OS X. Why is it suddenly Apple's responsibility to somehow make people happy who went out of their way to not give money to Apple?

To make an analogy --- people who buy a Pegasos and MorphOS and then demanded Hyperion support that choice with their games got little sympathy. If someone made OS4.0 runnable on the Pegasos, through a hack that circumvented the dongle code, and then Hyperion's OS4.1 happened to no longer work with that hack, would you say that Hyperion "stranded their customers"?

Of course, a recall of those "clones" would necessarily involve a full refund (and probably quite some compensation beyond that) to PsyStar's customers --- so those customers who choose to give up their perfectly working machine as part of the "recall" can just buy real Apple hardware with that money. Hardly "stranded".

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Apple has a known history of putting its own interests above its customers'.

Again, I find that (a) unsurprising in a for-profit organisation, if true, and (b) fail to see how the interests of Apple's customers were hurt in any of your examples (well, I concede that people who buy an iPhone despite the well-publicised closed nature of the beast while being interested in an open device are indeed Apple's customers, and their interests are indeed being ignored --- but by the same argument, someone who buys the first book in an unfinished trilogy while being interested in a story with a conclusion is a customer with interests the product failed to address, and yet nobody would blame the author).

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So I don't think it's a stretch to think that Apple will abuse this kill switch they've installed.

I think it is an extreme stretch to somehow confuse the issue of choosing to not allow particular software any longer to make use of Apple-assisted distribution through one of Apple's crown jewels, the iTunes store, with that of choosing to remotely and retroactively disable software customers have paid good money for. Which is what your post did --- it used the phrase applicable to remote disabling ("malicious software") and associated it with things which were merely no longer distributed via the app store.

Apple never said that any of the software they choose not to distribute was "malicious". You, on the other hand, attributed that attitude to them, without any qualifications of "I think", "A stretch" or so, either.

Last edited by umisef on 12-Aug-2008 at 01:56 PM.

@umisef

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How so? It's not like the owners of machines from the "rivals" suddenly found themselves without working computers.

If you had a clone that was under guarantee and broke, then yes.

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If they really were trying seriously, they have done a lousy job. Jailbreaking (rather than unlocking) the things has been readily available for all members of the family almost since the first iPhone was sold. My iPod Touch certainly has all sorts of goodies installed...

It doesn't matter how easy it was, it was the fact that someone had to download a crack to do it. I can't help it if Apple's engineers are incompetent.

Your excusing of Apple's behavior towards its customers (not their competitors, the people who pay them) as being OK for the sake of profit tells me all I need to know about you. You're a blind Apple fanboy, and nothing I say will make you think that Apple can do any wrong. I have better things to do that debate a fanatic.

@CodeSmith

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You're a blind Apple fanboy

I find that quite funny :)

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Your excusing of Apple's behavior towards its customers

OK, in your examples, their customers are iPhone/iPod Touch owners. I am one of them.

Tell you what --- my iPod Touch sometimes crashed. Locked up hard, nothing moving anymore. With lots of experimenting, I narrowed it down to one (installed-through-jailbreak) 3rd party app. It wasn't always that one that crashed, but whenever the iPod crashed, I had been using that app not too long ago. When I stopped using that app (it having developed a fault that made it useless, and which even a reinstall would not cure), the crashes stopped. I suspect it was leaking memory, and once enough had leaked, the system would run out when trying to do things.

Apple's behaviour towards their customers is to protect them from something like that happening, and thus to protect the customer experience of "it just works". An iPod locking up is not *too* bad. The same thing on a phone would be much worse, because some of the phone's functionality, unlike the music playing iPod's, can be essential, and time-critical.

And no, just saying "do this at your own risk" or "installing third party apps may diminish your experience" is not enough. People, in general, do not comprehend the complex interactions between separate apps on their devices, any more than your average computer user understands what's happening on their Windows box. Thus, they would blame "the iPhone" for crashing, or sucking dry its battery in no time. Most of the ones complaining loudly would not even think to mention running third party apps.

Now, as I said before, we could argue whether protecting the user experience is worth the tradeoff of less openness, or whether being able to do with your device what you want is worth the hassles that usually come along with it --- and from the fact that my Touch is jailbroken and that my AppleTV spends most of its time playing back things in mplayer, you can see that I am certainly in the likes-to-tinker category.

However, no matter how much we argue, it is perfectly clear that choosing Apple means choosing products which value user experience over user expandability. You know this when you buy Apple stuff; You know that if you want to tinker, you'll have to "download a hack" (in the case of the Touch, it was "visit a special webpage in the Touch's Safari browser" --- hardly rocket science), and that afterwards, you no longer have a device as intended and supported by Apple. So if you feel that those terms are unacceptable to you, don't buy Apple. It's as simple as that.

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by voyager2007 on 11-Aug-2008 12:16:05 @BrianK They only want to use that feature to disable possible malicious applications that have been sneaked through the AppStore to customer's phones. Imagine a trojan or virus hidden in an application. If that is discovered after the product has been sold, it can be disabled by Apple before doing more damage. Otherwise, Apple might be liable, so it's merely a thing recommended by their lawyers to prevent lawsuits from customers damaged by bad software. I think it's a good idea to have such a thing. The black list is currently empty, btw.

Apple recommends the ability for users or Apple itself to disable apps downloaded through the AppStore as a precaution against malicious applications that might sneak in and cause harm after being sold. This measure can prevent damage by allowing swift action if such an app is discovered post-sale, potentially avoiding legal liabilities on Apple's part due to customer damages caused by bad software. The feature remains unused as there are no apps listed for disabling yet.

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by CodeSmith on 12-Aug-2008 16:09:15 @umisef Quote: How so? It's not like the owners of machines from the "rivals" suddenly found themselves without working computers. If you had a clone that was under guarantee and broke, then yes. Quote: If they really were trying seriously, they have done a lousy job. Jailbreaking (rather than unlocking) the things has been readily available for all members of the family almost since the first iPhone was sold. My iPod Touch certainly has all sorts of goodies installed... It doesn't matter how easy it was, it was the fact that someone had to download a crack to do it. I can't help it if Apple's engineers…

It seems like CodeSmith is criticizing the practice of jailbreaking iOS devices due to concerns about potential warranty issues for owners, while also expressing frustration towards Apple's approach and brand loyalty. The user doesn't appreciate being told they are a fanboy without considering their perspective on these matters.